Questions loom about Andre Iguodala’s future in Denver

The travel plan for early May was San Antonio. But with the Nuggets season prematurely over, Andre Iguodala is now heading to Los Angeles for some free time — and to mull his future.

See, the Denver guard can make $16 million next season, but he has the choice to opt out of his contract and sign a new, longer deal with Denver or with another team. Re-signing with the Nuggets would give him a chance to sign for an additional fifth season and give him security. But other teams, notably Dallas and Atlanta, will have ample salary cap space this summer.

“When I got to Los Angeles and sit down and talk to my agent — we’ll start having conversations,” Iguodala said Friday at Pepsi Center. “I didn’t really think the season would be ending this early. It was never on my mind what I would do next year. My whole thought process was about how deep we can go, and how can we improve on the team we have right now.”

The Nuggets lost 4-2 in the first round to Golden State, the Game 6 loss on Thursday at Oracle Arena.

This is speculative, but Iguodala could sign with Denver for about $48 million for four seasons. Some teams might be willing to go into the $50 million range. But a lot of signings are based on other signings, so again, it’s speculative. Iguodala turned 29 this season, and after another rewarding experience with Team USA last summer at the London Olympics, he understandably appreciates playing with mature, talented players.

Asked if ho these playoffs played out gives him less hope of future success in Denver, he said, “It doesn’t give me less hope, especially considering we had our one of our leading scorers (Danilo Gallinari) down and our youth – they have nowhere to go but up, and that’s something you have to take into consideration. …

“I know what type of potential this team has; so that won’t weight heavily on my decision. … The timeline of my career going forward, I definitely want to win a championship. At the same time, it’s a business, but I don;t think it’s a factor. The front office knows what I bring to the team, so we’ll see what happens. There are so many factors that I haven’t even thought of yet. Which is why I’ll just sit down and weight all my options, take my time with it, and not rush into anything.”

Can this Nuggets nucleus someday win a title?

“I think we have the opportunity,” Iguodala said. “We have some ingredients and I think the pieces that are missing – Masai [Ujiri] has found a way to bring that in. I think that started with bringing me here. He’s really hungry, Coach [George] Karl is hungry, and we have a lot of hungry players as well.”